


Alcohol Tolerance

by bratfromstrat



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, F/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 15:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16329050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bratfromstrat/pseuds/bratfromstrat
Summary: Shanker and Cormoran get more drunk than they intended and Robin's name crops up more than once.





	Alcohol Tolerance

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it's another plotless one shot. I honestly apologise for foisting this on the world.

"You wanna get your leg over, mate," Shanker advised loudly, dropping two packets of crisps on the shining table top. "Good shag, that's what you need."  
He and Cormoran were drinking in one of Cormoran's pubs, The Runaway Cart. The place had filled rapidly when a particularly heavy rain cloud burst outside, and Cormoran was now stuck at the table nearest the door, newcomers accidentally hitting his back with their umbrellas as they entered behind him.  
He raised his eyebrows.  
"How long has it been since you broke up with that bird who dressed like my nan?" Shanker continued, tactlessly, presumably referring to Lorelai's vintage dress sense. "Gotta be 6 months at least. Look at you, your palms'll be as hairy as the rest of you soon."  
Shanker cackled, gold tooth glinting in the light.  
Cormoran rolled his eyes and took a swig from his pint. "Haven't met anyone, have I?"  
"Bull-shit," Shanker enunciated clearly. "You meet more shagable women in one week than most men do in a year. Divorcees, innit? Gasping for it."  
"Charming, you are."  
"Hey, I'm not saying you should take advantage," Shanker objected seriously, "but 6 months is 6 months."  
Cormoran shrugged, the rain off someone's umbrella hitting the back of his neck. "Haven't been in the mood."  
Shanker proceeded to plunge into a detailed and indiscreet account of his latest sexual encounters, his tone that of a stern teacher demonstrating how things should be done.  
"We don't all have an endless line of sex workers in our immediate vicinity though, do we?" Cormoran interrupted, mostly to shut Shanker up as his phone had started ringing.  
He took the call without looking at the screen, too busy returning Shanker's crude hand gesture.  
"Hello?" he said, business like, on the off chance it was a client calling him this late on a Friday night.  
"Hi, it's Madge," lied Robin, tentatively, in her most convincing Scottish accent (she had been practicing with Barclay).  
"Alright, Madge," Cormoran smirked. He was used to receiving calls from Robin while she was undercover. She was prone to saving him under ever more ridiculous names on her phone so she could pass him off as her brother, her friend, her boyfriend. In the last few weeks he had been called upon quite a few times to play the role of Ronald, Madge's brand new boyfriend, as Robin grew closer and closer with the professional agony aunt who just loved getting in the middle of Madge and Ronald's new relationship, when she wasn't letting slip casual details about her husband's illegal practices - the real reason Robin was there.  
The following conversation was highly entertaining for Cormoran, who, in the absence of their code word "tube station", knew he wasn't on speaker phone. Robin enacted one half of a conversation between two budding lovers beautifully, while Cormoran answered as stupidly as he could, revelling very unprofessionally in the tiniest waver in her voice that let him know she was struggling not to laugh.  
Eventually, she hung up, Cormoran still grinning childishly.  
" 'Oo the fuck was that?" Shanker asked.  
Cormoran realised how ridiculous his end of the conversation must have sounded and chuckled.   
"Robin. She's undercover. Has to keep calling her "boyfriend" to keep the nosy lady she's cozying up to interested."  
"Her boyfriend?" Shanker repeated, raising his eyebrows.  
"Yeah, all right," Cormoran sighed, aware that he had just opened himself up to a branch of mocking he hadn't been subjected to for a while.  
"No way you had the balls-"  
"I'm not really dating, Robin, you stupid-"  
"Ohhh, but you are her boyfriend."  
"She's undercover! We-"  
" 'Ere we go, "we're just friends!" "we work together!". You'll be saying you crashed 'er wedding as a friend next."  
"I did crash her wedding as a friend."  
Shanker shook his head, surveying Cormoran judgementally.  
"You fucking muppet. She's the reason you're not shagging any of them divorcees too, isn't she?"  
"No, that's actually my moral code, you should look into getting one," Cormoran deflected.  
"Fucking muppet," Shanker repeated, apparently ignoring this jab, and went back to the bar to get their fourth round.  
Sullenly, Cormoran started eating his crisps.  
For another two hours or so they drank heavily and stayed away from the subject of Cormoran's love life. Not until they had downed a round of Jameson's together did Shanker breach the subject again.  
"See the probl'm wi' you," he started grandly, though his voice was thick with inebriation. "Is that you let fuckn- fucking Charlotte take your balls in the divorce."  
"I never married Charlotte," Cormoran objected woozily.  
"Shut up. You, Bunsen, /you/ are... you're a twat now, you know? A prick. Like... like... I don't know. Rob'n - /Robin/ is a very sexy girl - but I would never say that about her - but she's fucking hot, yeah? So like - Charlotte has your bollocks in a tin and you shouldn't... she's kind too though, Robin."  
Cormoran, who was drunk enough for this to make perfect sense, groaned and leaned his head on his arms.  
"But I work with her," he moaned.  
"You work /for/ her," Shanker corrected him, then frowned. "No, different. You're her boss."  
"Senior partner," Cormoran corrected mechanically because Robin wasn't there to do it.  
"Well fire her, then you can marry her," Shanker said. So simple. So obvious.  
Cormoran did consider this, but something told him Robin might object to that plan in some way. He told Shanker so. Shanker said he was an idiot. Cormoran apologised absently.  
Shanker, who was again losing interest in Cormoran's love life, tried to strike up a different topic of conversation a few swaying seconds later, but Cormoran was distracted now.  
"You're right, she is sexy and kind," he said, loudly, over whatever Shanker was saying. It wasn't about Robin. He didn't care. "An' - an' - an' she's all golden too. And all smart 'n stuff. Like Madge..."  
"Who the fuck is Madge?"  
"She came up with everything for Madge 'n Ronald and it works so well when she does stuff? All stuff works well with her. Like driving."   
Shanker frowned "You can't drive, you cripple."  
"She can drive like... like the wind." That seemed like an apt analogy. "Like John Hunt. Like... anything."  
"That woman over there-"  
"And she smells like a meadow," Cormoran asserted himself loudly, irritated that Shanker wanted to talk about anything else.  
"She's so nice about my leg, /she/ never calls me a cripple."  
"I'd never call you a cripple!" Shanker was appalled. Then he thought about it and cackled. "You are a cripple though."  
"See? You're a pr- a prick, but Robin is lovely."  
"Go talk to her then," Shanker advised, still entertained by his own wit in calling Cormoran a cripple.  
"No, I'm a bit tipsy."  
"You want my alc'ol tolerance, mate," Shanker bragged, missing his mouth with his drink.  
"Alc'ol," Cormoran muttered absently,, then thought about Robin again. "D'you think she knows?"  
"That you won't fucking shut up about her?" Shanker asked.  
Cormoran nodded blearily, hoping it would clear his head.  
"I dunno. Probably."  
"I should be paying her more money..."  
Shanker stuck a finger in his face. "Hey! She's n- not a whore, your Robin. She's a nice girl."  
"I meant for her job," Cormoran slurred, smacking his finger away.  
"Oh. Yeah."  
"I just... she lights up the whole office. Always. With her sm- smile. I want to give her things that make her happy. All the time. Sometimes she's sad and I want to do something about it but she doesn't know because I don't tell her I want to - and we /work/ together. She makes me laugh though. She's say boogger. /Boogger/. Like - like - boogger. But that doesn't make me laugh, that's just cute. She makes /jokes/ though. And her accent is fn- funny. Boogger."  
Shanker slapped Cormoran on the shoulder to shut him up. "That girl looks exactly like Robin, what the fuck..." Shanker breathed.  
Robin, looked at both of them, mouth trembling with suppressed laughter.  
Cormoran swore and tried to stand in an act of old-fashioned chivalry. He very nearly capsized the whole table.  
"Robin!" he greeted merrily, swinging his long arms about.  
"Cormoran!" she imitated.  
"How'd you find us?"  
"You left a note. I thought one or both of you might need help getting home," she laughed.  
The two men looked at each other in genuine shocked innocence. Them? Too drunk to get home? Of course not.  
Robin gave a wry smile and started pulling Cormoran gently towards the door.  
"Sorry, Shanker, I'm assuming you'll be okay on your own."  
Shanker, who was already preparing to mourn the loss of his drinking buddy with more alcohol, assured Robin he would be fine and started to try and flag down an imaginary waiter in this bar-service establishment.  
"Come on, Corm, I can't leave you in this state."  
Cormoran let Robin guide him out of the pub complacently, concentrating hard on keeping his ballance.  
Once out on the street, Robin wrapped one arm around his back and kept one guiding hand on his closer arm, steering him like his elbow was a rudder. She was smiling to herself. The words she had heard - had /thought/ she had heard - upon entering the pub ringing in her ears.  
Cormoran tried valiantly to appear sober and interested in any updates Robin had, but she knew anything she had said to him now would have to be repeated the next day, and only said enough to humour him. His comments and interjections were utterly senseless and often off-topic, but his comically intense attempt at an expression of rapt interest touched her.  
When she asked him about his own day, and how exactly he had come to drink quite that heavily with Shanker, he didn't seem able to provide a coherent answer.   
"What were you talking about?" she asked casually, as they reached Denmark Street. "When I came in it sounded worryingly like you were making fun of my accent."  
"I love your accent," he informed her stubbornly, as if he was defending it to some third party.  
"Good," she said, watching him intently.  
"And," he continued grandly, "I think you're very kind and clever and sexy."  
Robin blushed so deeply she thought she might be as dizzy as Cormoran. She had not been expecting that.  
"I suppose I shouldn't say that. Because we're mates 'n... 'n cos we work together. But I like you a lot Robin."  
Robin became intensely aware of her arm around Cormoran, as he staggered blithely onwards, now at the bottom of the stair case. She had no clue what to say. She was glowing.  
Cormoran looked up and down the steps, unaware of the effect his drunken words were causing, and proclaimed confidently: "piece of cake."  
And then he was off.  
Robin followed close behind, guiding him as carefully as she could, still blushing furiously.   
"Careful now," she muttered.  
Cormoran was too focused on his ascent to answer.  
Finally, after only a few near-death experiences, they were at his flat door.  
Cormoran swayed above her.  
"I'm not very drunk, Robin," he promised.  
"Lying bugger."  
Cormoran grinned stupidly. "Boogger."  
On a wave of fond feeling Robin pulled her very drunk friend into a hug, burying her face in his coat collar. Cormoran hugged her back, hard.  
Then she pulled back and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She knew he would have forgotten that by morning. He would forget, but she wouldn't.


End file.
